Intimate partner abuse is a terrible tragedy.

I don’t understand this law though. Don’t billions of people practice arranged marriage? Isn’t this just enforcing western culture norms on communities arbitrarily?

Personally, I’d like to know if there is a higher rate of spousal abuse in arranged marriages when controlling for other factors. Has this been studied in Australia?

Edit:

ANSWER: It is not arbitrary. It is addressing a real problem of abuse and trafficking. Studies have been done in partnership with the communities potentially impacted.

Here is one research report from the Australian Institute of Criminology: “The cases of forced marriage examined for this study revealed consistent themes… Marital life was strict, severe and traumatic. Domestic violence, in all its forms, was commonplace—physical, sexual and emotional abuse (actual and threatened), imposed social isolation and financial manipulation—and perpetrated not just by the husband but also by the husband’s male and female relatives.”

However, it is hardly cut-and-dry. Here is another study from FECCA, which represents the interests of ethnic minority communities: “Ultimately, the current data suggests that the prevalence of forced marriage is either low or unknown in Australia… Criminalisation may drive the practice further underground, and there is no data to suggest that criminalisation has reduced the number of instances or referrals of forced marriage.”